As he walked through the doorway, a million possibilities ran through Logan’s mind. He’d enter a tunnel like the other trial and lead underground moles to victory, he’d be sucked through a vacuum in space that took them to a space battle already in place; he’d be transported to the Roman Empire and don a skirt.
What he wasn’t expecting was… a holding pattern. Something had seized him, forced him motionless. He’d frozen midway through the door, standing in place, nothing but vibrant, white light surrounding him from all sides. It was as if he were a mannequin. He couldn’t move! He couldn’t turn his head; he could see only bright, blinding light.
What the hell?
Ding!
[You have entered the battlefield prepping area! You will be peppered with a series of questions and scenarios, and your choices will determine the battlefield arena. Each choice has consequences. Choose carefully, Idiot!]
[Question one! In this scenario, you can save humanity! But to do so, you must sacrifice your friends, family, and your bonded companion.]
[Will you save humanity? Or will you kill everyone else to save your friends, family, and bonded companion?]
Logan knew the System expected him to mentally hover over one of the choices, but what the hell was this? He’d expected a battlefield, not a moral quiz! This shit better not have real-world consequences since it suspiciously resembled his Save Humanity Quest.
If Logan could move, he’d be pinching the bridge of his nose. If he made one choice or the other, what did that do to the trial? Make it morally corrupt? Like fighting demons versus angels?
He didn’t like this.
[CHOOSE] flashed in front of his eyes.
Okay, okay. Save humanity or save everyone he loved? From a strict statistical choice, the answer was easy. Logan’s friends and family could fit in a large room, the rest of the world filled up the planet. Plus, each person had their own friends, their own family. Hell, for all he knew, they had their own Ernie.
But it wasn’t that simple. If he saved humanity and sacrificed his personal connections, where would that leave him? Why fight on? He’d have no purpose, no joy in life. He’d gotten as far as he had because he wanted to save Lara and the kids, and without her, what was left? Logan would have no motivation to complete the Save Humanity Quest, no motivation for anything. He suspected that he would become jaded, and morally corrupt just like this hypothetical question.
Logan knew what answer he should choose. If he were a back seat driver for anyone else, he’d be screaming his head off to save humanity. But to save humanity, he’d have to murder everyone he loved.
If there was one thing Logan knew, human minds weren’t good at empathizing with billions of others. The singularity effect was a real thing. Individual lives? Anyone could empathize with one person who was suffering. But multiply that by a hundred, a thousand, a million? Empathy became non-existent. Throw in the fact that he’d be killing the people he loved, and it became impossible.
Logan knew it made him a horrible person, but he couldn’t sacrifice his friends and family. Sacrifice Ernie. He just couldn’t.
With an inward wince, he focused on the ‘save your friends’ option.
[Selection confirmed. Very good, slaughterer of billions! Next question!]
[Your army can fight on a frozen lake and sink through ice to their deaths, they can fight in a gorge and be crushed by a landslide, or they can fight in a swamp and drown, smothered by mud. Make your choice.]
Reeling, Logan wanted to blink in disbelief, but he was still frozen. What kind of question was that? Was this a battlefield tactician trial, or an obstacle course? His glitchy as hell AI minion must have had a brain aneurism. It was beyond ridiculous.
But perhaps… perhaps it was asking him where he wanted to fight? The terrain? If he disregarded the death suggestion, it sounded like he could either fight on a frozen lake, fight in a gorge, or fight in a swamp. Logan had the advantage of [Deepwater Explorer] for both the lake and swamp options, but that wouldn’t help him if he froze to death. Plus, a swamp would mean horrible terrain and he had a hypothetical army to consider, not just himself.
If he had the opportunity to fight in a gorge, he could see tactical advantages to that, huge tactical advantages. He didn’t like the idea of a landslide, but then again, he didn’t like the idea of freezing or choking on mud either.
Logan mentally hovered over the option he wanted.
[Gorge selection confirmed! Death by landslide it is!]
[Next question! Think carefully, Idiot.]
[Would you prefer someone who was squishy like a blob, hard like a rock, or sharp like a knife?]
What in the world? This time, Logan was stumped. Prefer someone? Prefer who! It couldn’t be referring to a weapon, since unless it was talking about sentient weapons, a weapon wasn’t a ‘someone.’
Logan’s eyes started to water from the bright lights and stress sweat beaded on his forehead from a combination of not being able to move and the unknown consequences of these questions. For all he knew, the way he answered would affect him once he was out of the trial dungeon, doing who knew what once he returned to the lake.
He’d try to give the System the benefit of the doubt.
If he could make a sound, he’d be snorting in disbelief. But if the question were related to—
[CHOOSE.]
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
Shut up, asshole. If the question were related to ‘someone,’ could it be referring to his potential army? After all, when he thought of an army, it was in a traditional sense. An army storming Normandy, the marines kicking ass.
What if they weren’t a humanoid army? Something ‘blobby’ could potentially absorb hits, but he couldn’t see agility advantages. Hard like a rock could be a rock person; there were massive advantages of being a rock! Hits would be difficult if impossible, but just like a blob, it wouldn’t have free movements. As for the knife, he was stumped. An alien who had knives for limbs?
There were too many unknowns. At this point, he might just have to guess with a hope and a prayer.
Logan mentally hovered over his choice.
[Squishy Blob selection confirmed!]
Why the hell not? A squishy blob reminded him of Ernie, and he’d never gone wrong with Ernie.
[Last question! We hope you crammed for the exam, Idiot.]
[A chicken. A brood parasite. A serpent.]
[CHOOSE.]
Oh, come on! Be vaguer, why don’t you? The System might as well wrap the options in a riddle. How the hell was he supposed to know what this was? No hints, just a list of animals. Ugh.
Ugh ugh ugh.
The sweat beading on his forehead drizzled down and stung his eyes. What’s worse, he couldn’t blink, asshole System. He had no idea about this one… other than one possibility. The trial was called ‘Capture the Egg.’ Were these his egg choices? Everyone knew what a chicken egg looked like, but it was also fragile. If he accidently cracked the egg, would that have consequences?
A brood parasite was a bird who left eggs in other bird’s nests. The parents thought they were raising their own young while the intruder stole the food and killed the true young. Nasty critters, but still birds.
As for the serpent…
Hell no. Not with his Eager Beaver title, thank you very much. He’d had to deal with enough serpents to last a lifetime. For all he knew, just being in the presence of a serpent egg would make it hatch and then he’d be ‘catching’ an egg with legs.
At least with the chicken, he knew what to expect.
Logan made his selection.
[Chicken selection confirmed!]
[You have completed the battlefield prepping area questions! Calibrating choices…]
[Calculating…]
[….]
[..]
With a further flare of bright, blinding light, so bright he was seeing white floaters, the System released him, that hidden force disappearing. With something that felt like a shove, he was pushed through the doorway.
Logan stumbled onto the ground and rubbed his eyes before wiping away his stress sweat with his arm. Running a hand through his hair, he glanced around for the others.
They were nowhere to be found.
Ding!
[You have entered the battlefield arena! You have 24 hours to prepare your army, navigate the terrain, and determine a battlefield strategy. After the time expires, you’ll be transported to the viewing room with the remainder of your party. The battle will then commence upon the order determined.]
[Enjoy your trial.]
Logan blinked, clenching his hands into fists as he looked around. The System had deposited him onto flat, barren ground. It was a dirt path that was fifty feet across covered in nothing but gravel and dust, and the occasional rolling tumbleweed. On each side was rock, a rock wall that led up, up and up. As high as a large hill; so high that he couldn’t make out what was at the top. The sides of the rock wall were sheer, so sharp that it would take an expert rock climber to make it up there, someone with serious equipment.
“Your orders, commander?”
Logan turned around.
His eyes widening, he could only stare.
It was… a blob. A squishy blob.
[Squishy Blob Level 5. The captain of the blob army. Highest Stat: Constitution.]
The being was over seven feet tall and swollen like a rhinoceros. It was grey, with spots of speckled black. It had no legs, rather, it balanced on the ground with a globous bottom that seeped slime. In place of arms were three appendages. They were short, with sharp little claws. Its gut was immense and rounded, only further emphasized by the belt looped around its waist. It had no neck—it was all part of the same blob.
It reminded him of the green Slimer from Ghostbusters.
The blob blinked three large eyes the size of saucers at Logan. “Commander? Your orders?”
How was it speaking? Where was its mouth? Feeling dizzy with disbelief, Logan swallowed. “My… orders.” Tearing his eyes away from the blob to look around was like trying to look away from a car wreck.
Behind the blob were more blobs. Hundreds of them. They were smaller than this one, shorter and skinnier, but they were still… blobs.
This was his army.
Logan had an army of blobs.
“What’s your name?” Logan asked. Please say it isn’t Bob.
“Žigžižižižgig, commander!” The blob’s voice was gravely like a rock.
…Right. “I’ll just call you Zig, shall I?”
Logan squeezed his eyes shut and then gave himself a mental talking to. This was an alien. It would be pretty ignorant of Logan to expect that everyone he encountered would be humanoid. In a way, he’d gotten lucky with the Silverdagger Clan with their human mannerisms and expressions. To the blob, Logan might be the odd-looking one. For all he knew, blobs were common in the universe. He wasn’t going to judge a book by its cover. Just because it was a blob, didn’t mean it was lazy or unintelligent.
“Where is the enemy, Zig?”
The blob bobbed its head. “Beyond the ridge, preparing for war. We’ve received their message. They’ve given you a day to surrender or they’ll meet us on the battlefield.”
Logan ran his fingers over his chin and scratched his stubble. He couldn’t see anything beyond his own army; he needed to get the lay of the land. If he had a day to prepare, that should be a ton of time. “We’re going to war. But first, I need to survey the camp and see what we have to work with.”
Zig bobbed his head again. “Shall I flay the lackluster performers, commander?”
Logan momentarily froze. “…Flay?”
Zig waved one of his appendages, his claws flashing in excitement. “Yes, flay! A demonstration of your evilness will get the camp excited.”
Aw man. Logan was reminded of the battlefield questions, that moral question about killing humanity or saving his loved ones. Did the System just label him a cookie cutter villain? With all the fun that entailed.
“No… flaying. Not yet. I need to do research first.”
“As you command,” said Zig, nodding, but he’d deflated as if Logan had ruined his fun.
“Zig, where is the egg?”
“Protected, your evilness!”
“Where?”
Zig slimed his way past Logan and led the way towards the opposite end of the gorge. They’d effectively reached a dead end, the dirt path ending here and running smack dab into another cliff face. Damn. That meant that if the enemy pushed them back, they’d be surrounded.
“Here, commander!” The blob gestured to a hole in the ground that reminded him of a snake pit. At the bottom was a soft looking nest filled with loose dirt. And in the middle of the nest was a chicken egg.
Logan held back a laugh. This was nuts. Could this get any weirder? His ‘egg’ was a chicken egg, an egg that he needed to protect.
Well, at least it wasn’t a serpent egg.
Logan walked away from Zig and looked around, taking in the terrain. The trial hadn’t been named the brute force trial; he couldn’t just release his Cursed Length of Rope and go to town. That wouldn’t be how he won. No, this was all about tactics. That meant Logan needed to outsmart the enemy.
To do that, he needed to use what he had, and that meant more than what he’d find in his spatial collar. If the enemy’s army was as large as his, he needed something to tackle that many opponents.
Against the sheer gorge wall, there was a pile of material... hundreds of wooden planks and nails. And about a dozen wagons.
Logan moved closer and peered inside one of the wagons.
They reminded him of something he’d see in a historical movie—with huge, wide wheels and rough wood. Inside each wagon were clay barrels filled with black liquid. It looked like tar. Next to the wagons were bundles of hay, hundreds and hundreds of them.
Huh.
He might have a way forward here.
Chicken egg trial, here we come.